


The Chimera Affair

by JeanGraham



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-10-01 20:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20398213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: Illya falls into the hands of a vengeful enemy.  Solo to the rescue.





	The Chimera Affair

See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>

**The Chimera Affair**

by Jean Graham

Rain pelted the cab. Windshield wipers that strove with a frantic  
_swish-clunk_ to resist the onslaught intersected Napoleon Solo's  
blurred view of New York's streets. At 3:22 a.m. they were  
virtually deserted, and when the cabbie pulled up in front of Del  
Floria's, the tailor shop's lights were the only ones in the  
brownstone block still burning. His collar turned up against the  
downpour, Solo paid his fare and hurried down the rain-soaked steps  
to Del Floria's door. He neither heard the jangling shop bell nor  
saw the night clerk waiting at the press to admit him. He moved  
directly to the cloakroom and reached to turn the coat hook release  
lever.

"Mr. Solo, we have a Code 9, Base Cairo," the secretary's impassive  
voice had said over his communicator just minutes ago. There had  
been no more to the message: there would be no more until he'd  
reached Waverly's office. But Solo's steps were hastened by more  
than the knowledge that Code 9 meant the probable annihilation of  
Cairo's U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters. He took the triangular badge from  
the receptionist without seeing her, and headed for the elevators.

Illya Kuryakin was in Cairo.

Solo's eyes scanned the Section One office before he was all the  
way through the door, taking in the harsh night lighting, the  
shuttered window, Waverly standing at the console -- and Section  
Two's Neal March seated at the round table.

"Ah, Mr. Solo." Waverly motioned him quickly to a chair and went  
straight to business, adjusting some key control in front of him.  
"Agent March has just returned from Cairo," he said over his  
shoulder. "He was working there on a follow-up assignment with Mr.  
Kuryakin, compiling a top secret list of couriers to be hand  
delivered to our Prague office."

Solo exchanged glances with Neal, his eyes still clearly  
questioning. Neal's offered no explanations.

"Thirty minutes ago," Waverly continued, "we received this message  
at the height of a siege on our Cairo headquarters. It's from Mr.  
Kuryakin."

Solo leaned forward, all vestiges of his interrupted sleep long  
since banished, and frowned at the unmistakable sound of gunfire  
that erupted from the tape at Waverly's fingertips. So Illya had  
been in the building...

"Emergency channel A, this is Cairo." Kuryakin had had to shout  
over the noise of the siege. "We are under assault... by  
unidentified forces..."

The voice stopped, interrupted by the sound of an explosion, then  
an immediate clamor of voices and running feet. _Breaking through_  
_ the door,_ Solo thought.

Kuryakin's voice came back, quickened and breathless with urgency.  
"Priority Red -- inform Solo that Chimera has--" There was a dull  
thud, a moan, and the loud popping sound of someone cutting off the  
circuit. Solo winced.

"I'm afraid that was all of the message," Waverly said as he  
stopped the tape and turned back to them. "Several of our field  
agents in the area are on their way to assess the situation more  
accurately. We expect to hear from them momentarily."

Solo shifted uncomfortably in his chair, rattled by the mention of  
Chimera almost as much as the knowledge that he had very probably  
just overheard Illya Kuryakin's death on tape. "He can't have  
meant the same Chimera, sir," he said grimly. "She died six months  
ago in Buenos Aires."

"Apparently died," Neal said. "No one ever found a body, you'll  
recall. Yesterday before I left Cairo, Illya thought he had a lead  
on her through one of our regular informants. He was planning to  
follow it up as soon as the courier list was delivered."

"Well if Chimera--" Solo scowled, and opted to drop the oil  
baroness' self-appointed code name. "If Erika de Marce is still  
alive, it's one of the best kept secrets in the eastern world. And  
if it was her private army that leveled U.N.C.L.E. Cairo..."

"A distinct probability," Waverly agreed. "De Marce had reason  
enough to hate U.N.C.L.E. We were the primary force responsible  
for preventing her illegal take-over of the major middle East oil  
companies. She may well plan to launch further assaults against  
our eastern offices. Those plans, obviously, must be thwarted.  
Chimera will have to be found, Mr. Solo. And stopped. We have no--"

The warble of the communicator signal interrupted him. Solo heard  
an unfamiliar voice request overseas relay and channel D. Waverly  
picked up the microphone. "Yes, Mr. Zahrin. What is your report?"

"U.N.C.L.E. Cairo is a total Code 9, sir," the voice replied. "All  
personnel dead. Looks like the assault team used enough explosive  
charges to knock over a small country."

Waverly pondered that. "I see. Any identification on the  
attackers?"

"Well we have several bodies sir, but..." Zahrin paused, then said,  
"The munitions appear to have come from the Osiris Construction  
Firm here in Cairo."

Neal nodded knowingly. "One of Chimera's holdings."

"Sir," Zahrin's voice said timidly, "our reports indicated the  
alert from Cairo HQ was sent out by Illya Kuryakin."  
"That's correct. Is there a problem, Mr. Zahrin?"

"No sir. Or maybe yes. That is, we've counted at least 21 of our  
people dead, but Kuryakin isn't among them. I'm calling from the  
communications room, sir, and there are signs of a struggle. But  
he isn't here."

Both Neal and Solo directed new attention to the overseas  
conversation. Waverly's discouraging look went unnoticed.

"Mr. Zahrin, you will direct your full report through the proper  
channels, please. Contact me again should you turn up anything of  
consequence."

"Yes sir."

With the communications channel closed, the head of U.N.C.L.E.  
turned weary eyes on his chief enforcement agent. "This latest  
development would seem to complicate matters somewhat," he said.

"Why?" Solo wondered out loud. "It means Illya is probably still  
alive."

"Yes. And in Chimera's hands." Waverly looked at Neal and took a  
seat at the table as he picked up the explanation.

"That list we were compiling contained more than just courier  
names," Neal said. "There were also informants, confidential  
government contacts, double agents... 73 names of vital importance  
to U.N.C.L.E.'s operations on the European continent."

"Compiled and encoded on what?" Solo asked. "Microfilm?"

Neal shook his head. "We had what we thought was a safer method."

Waverly raised an eyebrow at his choice of words. "It appears," he  
said, "that Erika de Marce somehow had inside information regarding  
that list. And that she staged the Cairo assault to obtain it --  
for the purpose of destroying U.N.C.L.E. Europe."

"No doubt," Solo agreed. "And you think she can force Illya to  
tell her where the list is hidden?"

Neal stared glumly at the tabletop. "She already knows where it  
is."

At Solo's confused look, Waverly said, "Eidetic, or photographic  
memory is often considered more a curse than a blessing. Should  
you locate your partner alive in Cairo, Mr. Solo, you shall have to  
ask him. You see, Mr. Kuryakin is not simply privy to the location  
of the courier list. I'm afraid he_ is_ the list."

* * *

Less than 12 hours later, Napoleon Solo, Neal March and  
U.N.C.L.E.'s private jet touched down on a runway fully half a  
world away from New York City. Solo's first view of Cairo out the  
port window proved a disappointment: he saw smoky clouds blackening  
a rain-drenched horizon.

"It rains here once in a proverbial blue moon," he said to his  
reflection in the glass. "You ever get the feeling the whole world  
was trying to dampen your parade?"

Neal ignored the remark. Wearing a blue field jumpsuit similar to  
Solo's, he was preoccupied with the adjustment of a backpack strap.  
"We still don't have any idea where to find Erika de Marce -- or  
Illya. They could have left the country entirely by now."

"I don't think so." Solo stared out the rain-splattered window.  
"Knowing de Marce, she hasn't taken Illya far. She'd be much too  
eager to get her hands on that list."

"I'd like to know how she knew about it in the first place.  
Whoever the leak was--"

"--is probably dead along with the rest of the Cairo personnel."  
Solo moved to the forward hatch: the plane had completed its  
taxiing maneuvers and rested now at the end of a privately-arranged  
runway. "Who betrayed us isn't important anymore. If Chimera  
learns the identities of the people on that list--"

"She could devastate U.N.C.L.E. Northeast, I know. This lady has  
one big grudge against us -- and all because we wouldn't let her  
buy Europe. Lousy sportsmanship." A green light over the hatch  
winked on. Solo spun the locking controls to "open," threw open  
the door and tripped the control that extended the boarding ramp.  
"All ashore that's going ashore," he said.

Neal gazed out at the drizzle dampening Cairo's night air. "After  
you," he said. "I'll forgo priority for the sake of an adequate  
windbreak."

Laughing, Solo preceded him down the ramp. His first step onto  
Egyptian soil, however, was accompanied by the whine of an errant  
bullet. "Get down!" He shouted the warning as a second shot  
_whanged_ into the metal stairs. Both of them had dropped and  
scrambled for the protection of the ramp: both had drawn U.N.C.L.E.  
Specials from beneath their well-equipped backpacks.

"Where are they?" Neal's voice was a whisper. "I can't see a  
thing."

Another shot came at them in answer. Solo pointed with the  
Special. "Just to the left of the service trucks, behind those  
packing crates. Right about... there." His gun coughed twice, and  
Solo was immediately rewarded by a moan and the sound of a body  
crashing into the packing materials some 50 feet beyond them.

"Bingo," Neal said softly. "But I think there are two of them.  
I'm sure I heard two different guns."

"So did I." Solo wiped beaded rainwater off the Special with his  
sleeve. "Cover me."

While Neal pumped bullets into the shadowy pile of wooden crates,  
Solo rolled under the plane ramp and came up in a running crouch,  
heading for the shelter of a parked military supply truck flanking  
the loading area. He slipped twice on the waterlogged asphalt,  
nearly losing his grip on the Special both times, but he regained  
his footing well enough to make it to the back of the truck, where  
he paused and listened. Silence... punctuated by dripping rain.  
Neal's barrage had ceased when he'd reached shelter. Pressed  
against the truck's greasy tailgate, Solo risked a peek around the  
musty-smelling canvas in time to see a bearded man in coveralls  
disappearing into the forest of packing crates where his shot had  
felled the first assailant. Gun in hand, he followed the figure  
into the shadows, coming silently up behind him as he knelt over  
his fallen comrade. The U.N.C.L.E. Special pressed itself against  
a back that went instantly rigid: the man's right hand moved  
instinctively toward the gun in his belt.

"Don't try it." Solo gave the Special's muzzle an emphatic shove,  
and pulled the erstwhile assailant to his feet before relieving him  
of a bulky Walther PPK. "All right, now turn around. Slowly."

Lettering -- in English -- on the pocket of the man's coveralls  
identified him as Hassad, and the firm that employed him as Osiris.

"I want answers," Solo said over the raised threat of his gun.  
"Where do I find Erika de Marce? "

Hassad opened his mouth as though to answer, but in the same  
moment, the man on the ground groaned and stirred on the wet  
pavement. Solo's attention was drawn away for the fraction of a  
second necessary for Hassad to act: one foot came up to send the  
Special flying, and Solo found himself falling backward under the  
crushing force of a desperate tackle. He recovered in time to roll  
with the momentum of the attack, and somersaulted Hassad over his  
head into a pile of crates that splintered noisily with the impact.  
By the time Solo regained his feet, Hassad had already come up  
swinging. He made three solid connections to Solo's jaw before the  
U.N.C.L.E. agent managed to land a doubled fist in his midsection.  
Hassad yelped and doubled over. Solo hit him again, tackled him  
and shoved him -- hard -- into the solid wall of concrete that  
formed part of the loading dock. Hassad's skull hit the cement  
with a resounding thud.

"Answers," Solo growled, shaking the coveralled shoulders until  
Hassad's head came back up. "De Marce and Kuryakin -- where are  
they?"

Hassad sputtered something negative. Cursing, Solo slammed him  
against the wall again._ "Where?!"_

"No..." The man's voice was tremorous. "I can't. Please."

"Napoleon..."

Solo hadn't noticed Neal's arrival on the scene until he'd spoken  
his name. He came into view with the retrieved Special in hand.  
Solo took it from him, ignoring the warning look in his eyes, and  
brought its business end to rest firmly between Hassad's eyes.  
Waverly might have called this exceeding the rules of fair play.  
At the moment, Napoleon Solo called it expedient.

"I don't have time for amenities," he said. "Now either you're  
going to answer my question or I will have to very untidily  
ventillate your head. Your choice."

Hassad closed his eyes tightly, as though the act somehow excused  
his cowardice. "Refinery," he murmured.

Solo's fist closed tighter over his collar and dragged him away  
from the wall. "Take us there," he ordered, and at Hassad's look,  
he re-aimed the Special at him. "No arguments."

Still shaking, Hassad acquiesced, and headed for the military truck  
like a man on the way to his own funeral.

He probably was.

* * *

It was nearly 1 a.m. in Cairo. The rain, a rarity in this part of  
the world at any time of year, had given way to a dry chill wind  
that buffeted the streets of the ancient city like some demon-  
driven gale from a B movie. Solo hardly noticed. He sat crammed  
into the truck's musty cab with his gun on Hassad, and Neal pressed  
close on the other side, his mind churning with contingencies. If  
de Marce remained true to form, she would not have a large battery  
of troops around to call attention to her activities. The assault  
force would long since have been paid off and disbanded. But  
wherever she was keeping Illya, there were bound to be guards...

He looked up at the sudden slight tap of Neal's hand on his  
forearm. "Don't worry," he said quietly. "We'll get him out."

The reassurance did little to ease Solo's apprehension, and it  
showed. "I guess my 'professional detachment' has been slipping a  
bit lately," he said. "As Illya himself is fond of pointing out,  
friendship too often gets in the way of practicality."

Neal stared through the dirty window at the poorly paved road they  
were lumbering over. A full moon, suspended over the highway,  
showed the way for them better than the almost non-existent street  
lighting. "You can't be detached all the time," he told Solo.  
"You work with someone long enough, you start to care. No one can  
help that."

Solo shook his head. "It isn't just Illya. There are hundreds of  
lives that will ultimately be at stake. The people on that list,  
then every U.N.C.L.E. office in Europe. Nothing could stop de  
Marce from rampaging through the oil fields after that. She'd own  
half the world..."

Neal scowled. "Well I'm all for women's suffrage. But I think  
trying to conquer the world is going just a bit too far."

The truck lurched to a stop, and they found themselves looking out  
at an acre of towers, fences, equipment and scaffolding, all of it  
neatly outlined in high intensity light strands that cast an eerie  
pinkish glow on the ground below. The place had the nightmarish  
look of some hellish, sinister fairyland.

"No guards at the gate," Solo noted as they prodded a reluctant  
Hassad from the cab. "Perhaps Madam Chimera wasn't expecting  
visitors tonight after all."

"Mm." Neal fitted a new clip to his Special. "Come into my  
parlor... Do we take Hassad with us?"

Solo decided against it. They hog-tied Hassad with the climbing  
rope from Neal's backpack, gagged him, and left him in the back of  
the truck. The compound gate, secured with a large lock, obliged  
them to scale the fence, and when they'd dropped inside, Solo  
pointed to two likely clusters of buildings some 100 yards apart  
amid the refinery towers.

"Eenie meenie minee moe," he half-whispered. "Which one looks like  
the best spot for an interrogation to you?"

"I prefer beating the odds. You take the one on the right. I'll  
try the other one." Neal patted the communicator clipped to his  
left front pocket. "If you need any help..."

He was gone before Solo could offer a comeback. He headed for the  
right-hand buildings, and spent 20 fruitless minutes snooping  
through unoccupied offices and equipment rooms. He scaled a ladder  
on the side of a smaller building behind the first one, and set  
about investigating skylights set into the corrugated steel roof.  
Approaching the fifth, he saw light -- and the fact that the glass  
was propped open to allow air into the room below.

Soundlessly, Solo crept to the edge of the opening and lay on his  
stomach to peer over. He saw a small steel-walled room, several  
portable pole lights -- and a wooden table on which Illya Kuryakin  
lay spreadeagled, wrists and ankles secured to the table legs by  
manacles and lengths of chain. His eyes were closed.

A woman walked into Solo's line of vision then. Tall, bulky,  
attired in a fastidious fawn pantsuit that clung to every bulge in  
her too-large body. _Erika de Marce in the flesh,_ Solo thought  
sarcastically. He watched her circle like a shark closing in on  
its prey. She bent over Illya and slapped him sharply across the  
face.

"Wake up!" she demanded. Kuryakin's eyes pulled wearily open and  
tried to focus on her.

"We're going to begin again," de Marce said. "Name."

In a slurred voice, Illya said, "Kuryakin."

"What year were you born? And where?"

"Nine... nineteen thirty three... Kiev."

De Marce smiled. "Excellent. That's two answers further than we  
got last time. Who do you work for, Mr. Kuryakin?"

Solo never heard the answer. He'd been distracted by the sudden  
touch of a gun muzzle to the side of his head, and spun to find  
himself facing two burly security men from Chimera's private army.

Relieved of his weapon, communicator and backpack, he was summarily  
marched down, around and into the building, finally coming face to  
face with the woman who aspired to own Europe. She'd come out of  
the corrugated room, and came toward him with that unwavering air  
of total control she extended over everything and everyone in her  
path.

"So it's you, Mr. Solo. All alone?"

He gave her a sick smile in return. "Well Cairo was just a tad  
short of backup personnel."

She nodded at one of her men. "Make sure there are no others." The  
man turned sharply and left. Solo's eyes raked the partitioned  
rooms inside the quonset-like building. De Marce and one guard...

Almost on top of his thought, a young man wearing a lab coat  
emerged from one of the cubicles with a clipboard and a filled  
hypodermic. "We're ready for the final phase," he said to de  
Marce. "He's talking now. One more injection should do it."

De Marce nodded to the guard whose gun was still firmly in place  
between Solo's ribs. "Bring him."

The four of them crowded into the room with the makeshift lighting.  
Someone produced a chair, into which Solo was compelled to sit.  
They didn't tie him. The threat of the guard's gun, he guessed,  
was considered sufficient deterrent.

De Marce took her previous position near the table while Lab Coat  
jabbed the hypodermic through the sleeve of Illya's shirt. He  
moaned and tried to turn away from it, but the manacles prevented  
his effort.

"Thirty seconds," Lab Coat said, capping the hypo.

A tape recorder sat running on a small stand near the door. De  
Marce, her air of triumph tangible, bent over Illya again. "The  
name of the organization you work for."

Illya's eyes came open again. Speech still slow and thick, he  
said, "U.N.C.L.E. The United Network--"

"I know what it stands for. Let's come to the point. Yesterday  
you were compiling a list of names for U.N.C.L.E. Memorizing them.  
I want those names."

Kuryakin blinked. "Names..." he repeated groggily.

"Seventy-three of them. We'll begin with the first four."

Solo held his breath, hoping against hope. But with almost no  
hesitation, Illya answered, "Almington... Chinua... Marois...  
Veradicci."

The list went on, four by four, while Solo listened and wondered  
whether Chimerals first security man had found Neal. The answer to  
his question appeared at the skylight overhead just as Illya was  
reaching the end of the long list of names. Solo saw the muzzle of  
an U.N.C.L.E. Special slip through the open window and draw a bead  
on the guard beside him. De Marce was pulling the tape reels from  
the recorder and bundling them hastily into a satchel.

"Get rid of both of them," she told the guard. "And clean up  
around here." She swept out the door mere seconds before the soft  
_chuff_ of a sleep dart came from above. The guard slapped at his  
thigh, then toppled. Lab Coat ran forward, but Solo's foot caught  
him in the stomach, and a blow to the neck sent him sprawling on  
top of the guard.

Neal dropped into the room. Solo blocked his hand before he could  
reach for the first of Illya's bonds. "He'll be all right. De  
Marce is getting away with the list. Come on!"

He scooped the guard's gun up off the floor and went out at a dead  
run with Neal at his heels. They emerged from the building to find  
the eerie fairyland as deserted as before. There was no sign of  
Chimera.

"She can't have gone far," Solo insisted. "She only walked out a  
few seconds before you--"

The sudden roar of an engine cut him off, and they both spun to  
look back over the building at a small red helicopter, rapidly  
rising from the rooftop beyond. Solo dropped and fired at it,  
trying desperately to hit the tail rotor, the fuel tank, anything.  
But by the time he'd reacted, the copter was already too high for  
the shots to be effective. The noise of the blades diminished  
swiftly as the machine rose, and in a moment it was gone, vanished  
into Cairo's night.

Solo looked down to see Neal holding the sleep dart clip he'd been  
trying to change for bullets in time to shoot at the copter. "I'd  
have rescued you sooner," he said acidly. "But I had a little  
altercation with one of Chimera's guards." He threw the clip down  
in disgust and slapped the bullets into the gun with the palm of  
his hand. "He's napping in the boiler room next door."

Solo had scarcely heard him. "Give me your communicator," he said.  
"If we can reach Zahrin, maybe we can still stop her before she  
gets any further with that list..."

"List," Neal repeated oddly, then at Solo's impatient gesture,  
surrendered the transceiver. "I heard the end of it. What were the  
names at the beginning?"

Solo frowned. "Almington, something, Marois, Veradicci. I don't  
know. I don't have an eid... a photographic memory. Why?"

Neal headed back inside. "Don't call in yet. See if you can help  
me find some black coffee..."

Eighty minutes and several cups of strong Egyptian coffee later,  
Illya Kuryakin was coherent again. Chimera's aides had been bound  
and dragged safely out of earshot.

"What other names can you remember, Napoleon?" Illya prompted.  
"Try. It's important."

Exasperated, Solo shrugged. "Henderson, Belvidore. Mai Tung, I  
think. Look, I don't know what you two are being so mysterious  
about, but--"

Neal was looking pointedly at Illya. "List B?"

"List B," Illya said.

"Chimera is getting away with that list--" Solo interrupted  
himself. "List B? Whatta you mean, list B?"

"Subliminal conditioning," Illya said, rubbing the back of his  
neck. "You know, the process U.N.C.L.E. uses to 'program' an agent  
with misinformation, to be triggered by interrogation?"

Solo scowled at the unecessary discourse. "You mean you memorized  
two lists? "

"146 names," Neal said. "But given an eidetic ability, that's no  
more difficult than memorizing 73."

"Chimera will be combing Europe for 73 non-existent people," Illya  
said. "And I, in the meantime, will have safely delivered the real  
list to our headquarters in Prague."

"Mm," said Solo, feeling somehow cheated. "Good thing we broke in  
after you'd given her all the phony names." Neal looked at him with  
mock hurt. "We?"

"Yes, Napoleon," Illya said. "We must look into this unfortunate  
propensity of yours for getting yourself captured and then redeemed  
in the nick of time by fellow agents."

"Oh?" It was Solo's turn to look hurt. "Well listen, the next time  
you need rescuing, why don't you try calling the cavalry?"

"Well I suppose you never had to--"

"Whoa!" Neal threw up a hand. "I'd let the battle of wits  
continue, but I promised Mr. Waverly I'd bring you both back in one  
piece."

Illya's joke about fellow rescuers notwithstanding, they both  
chorused a surprised, "You what???"

Laughing, Neal turned and walked ahead of them toward the gate and  
the waiting truck...

\-- The End --


End file.
